


bring your love baby (i can bring my shame)

by carrow



Category: Infernal Devices Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Abusive Relationships (mentioned), Alternate Universe - Bands, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drug Use, F/F, F/M, Heavy Drinking, M/M, implied eating disorders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-21 04:39:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4815377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carrow/pseuds/carrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jessamine is a storm of spray painted boots, tight skirts and blurry nights. Tessa is a mess of curls, oversized tanktops and denin jackets.<br/>Somehow, it works.</p>
<p>(Or the one that was supposed to be a 'punk au', but somehow became a 'everyone's fucked up but it turns out alright au')</p>
            </blockquote>





	bring your love baby (i can bring my shame)

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick note to say that it's been a while since I read TID so my descriptions of the characters may be a bit off. It's also a bit OOC, but seeing as it is a completely different set from the books, I don't think it's too much or too serious. 
> 
> Also, thanks to Macka for proof reading this. You're the best!  
> And maybe a bit of thanks to Yuu, for talking to me about this ship.

It might be her birthday. Not that it really matters, but still.

There are pink balloons all over the house and Charlotte keeps coming back with full cups of vodka mixed with something and fixing Jessamine’s hair, so it must be her birthday because even Charlotte, as nice as she is, isn’t usually that affectionate with her.

Will too, is unusually nice (and that for him just means that he hasn't called her names in the last hour or so). Jessamine is also quite sure that Jem put something on her hair, because after he walked over to her and ran his hands through her hair, the blonde strands that usually fall on her eyes aren't there anymore.

She has half a mind to touch her head just to be sure, but her fingers are starting to feel as numb as the rest of her and it doesn't matter anyway, because the moment Jessamine raises her head, she sees the girl.

Jessamine’s whole body goes cold for a second because in the barely-there light of Henry's shitty packed and awfully loud living room, she recognizes those features. Nevermind the girl's hair is long and brown instead of short and blonde, never mind that her eyes are darker than blue. Jessamine would know the curve of that chin from across the city, the shape of that nose and even the lips. Almost the same.

_I'm going insane_ , she thinks, _well, fuck,_ she answers herself, _took long enough_.

But when Jessamine looks again, she's still there laughing with Jem as if Will doesn't practically have both hands inside his boyfriend's pants.

Jessamine is too drunk to take notice of her body moving through the room. She crashes against someone who may be Charlotte, or Sophie, or Will's little slut of a sister, but hell, for all she pays them attention it might be Henry.

She almost falls over Jem, but he steps back fast enough or maybe Will pulls him back, whatever, Jessamine doesn't care about them.

She looks at the girl, standing there like she's waiting for something. "Who the fuck are you?"

"Tessa." She says.

"Your make up is ridiculous." It's not a lie. Tessa’s eye shadow is smudged and her dark lipstick is almost all off. Her make up is awful and she looks fucking amazing in it.

Tessa laughs and everything else is a blur.

 

At some point in the night they take tequila shots from each other's belly buttons and maybe from Jem's hipbones.

By four am, Jessamine is hunched over the toilet and Tessa is there, holding blonde hair back and rubbing a cold hand on Jessamine's neck.

They end up sharing the tiniest piece of sofa left from all the passed out bodies around the living room. At six in the morning, they're sharing a bottle of warm beer and talking quietly against each other. Jessamine's words don't make any sense and she can barely understand Tessa anymore.

She kicks at Gideon's head when he tells them to shut up and falls asleep minutes later, with her head on Tessa's shoulder.

 

Jessamine wakes up with the sun burning her face and too many bodies around her. She shoves Will away from her legs in order to get up from the couch, trips on Gideon in her first step and falls over Sophie. Neither of them do more than grunt and keep sleeping.

She finds one of her shoes in the kitchen and the other in the bathtub. On her way out she catches a glimpe of herself in the mirror. Jessamine is a mess of smudged pink lipstick and running mascara, but at least her winged eyeliner is intact.

There's a pink skull hair clip on her hair and she thinks she might remember Jem putting it on her last night, but as far as memories go, that's all she can make out of the night before besides loud music and too much alcohol.

***

The following week is boring as fuck.

Jessamine wakes up late for work everyday (nevermind that her shift starts at two pm) and spends the rest of her day manicuring old ladies who could've been her grandmother, maybe even her mother, but instead look at her with pitying eyes and send disapproving looks towards her less than perfectly clean army boots spray painted neon pink.

Wednesday afternoon she wakes up hungry and realizes the last thing she ate was her last apple monday night. She's too used to being either hungry or starving herself to even notice anymore. Lightheadedness is almost her natural state these days.

The only thing on her kitchen cabinets is an old cereal bar, which is enough for the day.

She works until nine thirty and her last client is a middle aged woman with blonde hair who talks about her daugthers the whole time, but runs her perfectly just-manicured fingers lightly over Jessamine's ponytail and tells her she wishes her daughters were like her.

Jessamine wants to cry, wants to scream at her about how unfair that is, about how she misses her mother. Instead, she shrugs, turns her face to the other side and says, hard and cutting " _No, you don't._ "

 

She stops at the shitty supermarket on her way home, pockets full of crumpled bills and pennies. Jessamine needs food for at least, the rest of the week, but when she drops her shopping basket in front of a bored looking Cecily, who doesn't stop chewing her gum loudly or fidgeting with her nose ring not even when she's cheking the basket's items, all Jessamine has is a bottle of vodka, lettuce, eggs and cereal bars. She asks for a pack of cigarrettes and Cecily doesn't even ask the brand anymore, just gives her two of the pink packs and forgets to charge it.

"We're getting together at Will's tomorrow." Are the only words Cecily says in their whole interaction, while Jessamine counts her bills. "You coming?"

"Whatever."

Cecily's bright red lips stretch in what may be a smile and she says as loud as everything else she does 'See ya.'

Jessamine's night ends with her drunk, crying in front of the TV and some romantic movie still going.

***

Jessamine can smell weed even before she reaches their door. The entire hall is filled with it and she'd worry someone might call the police on them if everyone else living in the dump they call a building weren't as fucked up as they are. Will - and Jem's - door is the farthest away from the stairs and it's wide open. The music is loud and Jessamine can hear screaming and laughter coming from it.

No one notices her until she plops down beside Sophie and takes the mug she's drinking from. Sophie barely registers it, too busy paying attention to the heated discussion going on.

There's a round of "Hey" s when everyone notices her, but then they're back talking over each other. Jessamine huffs out a greeting and sips from the mug she's holding. Whiskey and soda. Gross, but she can deal.

Once she takes the proper time to look around the room, two things get her attention: the first is that everyone but Charlotte is in various states of undress, the second is the girl sitting between Jem's legs and leaning against him.

Jessamine doesn't really remember her. It's more like impressions. Loud laugh, wet lips, cold hands and warm words slurred against her ear.

The girl smiles at Jessamine but the next second her attention is back on Will. He's trying to play a guitar that Jessamine is quite sure he didn't have last time she was at his place and he's failing miserably. The thing sounds like a thousand dying cats and the girl is telling him to stop that shit which of fucking course just makes him try harder.

Cecily bends down from the couch behind Jessamine and stretches her hand, passing the joint secured between two fingers to Jessamine.

She doesn't even have to think before taking it from Cecily. At the first drag Jessamine can already feel her body starting to relax. She throws her head back and holds the smoke in as long as she can before letting it out slowly.

When Jessamine turns back to the room everyone is still talking and not paying attention to her. Except for the girl.

(Jessamine is sure somewhere in her mind there's a name, but she can't remember.)

She's looking at Jessamine with an expression that is half smile half concentration and Jessamine feels her face getting warmer under the attention she's receiving.

Without knowing what to do and feeling too sober, Jessamine takes another quick drag from the joint and offers it to the girl still looking at her.

The girl is too far to just bend over and reach Jessamine, but instead of getting up and walking over, she crawls on her hands and knees from where she is next to the door to Jessamine sitting on the floor in front of the sofa.

She's wearing old skinny jeans and a dark brown bra with lace details and her long dark curls fall around her face while she moves forward.

If anyone were to ask, Jessamine wouldn't know how to explain what she did next or why, but with those grey eyes fixated on her, she barely registered her hands lifting towards the other girl's mouth.

Her lips sealed around the joint and Jessamine could feel on her fingertips when the girl sucked in the smoke, her eyes fluttering closed slowly. Jessamine took the opportunity to examine her face.

Long lashes, almost faded eye shadow, cute nose, full lips, slightly familiar chin. When she opened her eyes and leaned back, Jessamine noticed the stain of dark red lipstick around the joint and on her fingers.

One of the Lightwoods - Cecily's, probably - took the joint from Jessamine but before she could protest another hand, soft and cold, took Jessamine's hand and delicate fingers rubbed at her skin to clean off the lipstick.

Jessamine watched, more curious than anything, while the girl held Jessamine's hand between hers and quite literally massaged it softly. At some point, Jessamine figured her fingers were clean already but she was starting to feel the drug effect and was too comfortable to shoo off the other girl.

"Yo, Tess." Will called from his spot on the bean bag next to where she was before. Tess.

Ah, yes, _Tessa_.

Whoever she is, she's too comfortable around William and James. Not that Jessamine cares. She doesn't.

She is, though, curious about the girl. Which is more than she feels about most people.

***

She gets a text from Charlotte in the middle of the afternoon, while she's decorating the nails of an emo teenage girl with pentagrams.

_dinner @ g &g_

So after she says goodbye to the last client of the day, instead of heading home she walks in the opposite direction. September is just starting but her pink sweater doesn't do much against the night wind. By the time she reaches the Lightwood brothers' building, she's shaking from head to toe, most likely looking as pale as a corpse and her hair a mess.

The man on the reception desk sends her an uncertain look but says nothing. The brothers' apartment and building is better than everyone else's combined.

Then again, they have rich parents, even though for some reason both of them cut all ties with their family. Still, Jessamine wouldn't be surprised if the place was actually theirs instead of rented like most of them.

It's Jem who opens the door when she knocks. He's holding a glass of wine - an actual glass - that he promptly offers her when he sees the state Jessamine is in.

She thanks him, because different from all the others, Jessamine was always cordial with Jem. Maybe it was his calm personality, but she had liked him from the beginning.

The whole house smelled like roasting meat and it was so good Jessamine's stomach rumbled loud enough to make Sophie, who was closer - perched on the kitchen's island - look up at Jessamine and laugh. "I know, right?! I can't remember the last time I ate meat that wasn't a burger."

Instead of agreeing, Jessamine asked "What's the occasion?"

Gabriel raised the glass he was holding and announced as loud as humanly possible (and being Cecily's boyfriend, Jessamine wasn't even surprised about him being that scandalous). "We got a deal."

Okay. Like that made any sense. "What kind of deal?" As far as she's concerned, the only kind of deal they do is with Will's weed dealer Mauro, Marco, Magnus, _something with M._

"A record deal." He says, not as loud as before, thankfully.

"What for?" Jessamine shoots back not a second later. Jem laughs quietly beside her while a few shocked gasps sound across the room.

"Our band." Charlotte cries out indignantly, like it was Jessamine's duty to know that.

Thinking about it, Jessamine does remember them making a lot of noise in Charlotte's basement a few times when they were all together, but honestly, back then all she wanted was to not be sober, so.

"Oh. I thought that band thing was a joke." The moment the words leave her mouth, Jessamine knows they were a mistake.

 

Charlotte pouts the whole night, which means Henry keeps sending Jessamine those looks that are probably meant to be threatening or something. And both Lightwood brothers are even more insuferable, acting all offended because Jessamine didn't take them seriously.

Sophie's roasted meat is the best meal Jessamine has had in years and for the first time in a long while she almost feels at home; surrounded by people she knows and who know her, sated and warm.

 

The night ends with Jessamine and Tessa walking side by side back to their neighbourhood, Will and Jem a few steps behind so wrapped in each other it's surprising they didn't fall on their faces yet.

Halfway home she's shivering so much it almost seems like she's dancing or something. Suddenly, there's a weight over her shoulders and she turns her head to see Tessa without her denin jacket.

"This thing is the uggliest piece of clothing I've ever seen." Jessamine says, but shoves her arms in the jacket.

(She falls asleep wearing the thing that night. She also forgets to give it back.)

***

Turns out Charlotte's band is good. Or, you know, not as bad as Jessamine had thought.

Their first gig is at some fancy bar and of course Jessamine takes the opportunity to wear her best heels and tightest top.

Will says she looks like a goddamn Barbie, when he sees her and she smiles at him, throws her carefully curled hair back and says "What, like it's bad?"

A bunch of old dudes keep paying her drinks and she shares them all with Tessa and Sophie. Meanwhile, they watch Charlotte scream her lungs out while Gideon bangs on the drum like he's trying to kill something. Gabriel makes faces at his bass and Will and Jem smile at each other over their guitars.

At some point, Jessamine forgets she's supposed to be better than them and finds herself jumping and screaming with Tessa and Henry.

They make quite the picture: Henry with his too long and uncoordenated limbs, Jessamine in her all-pink outfit and Tessa with her combat boots and two sizes too big tanktop over leggings.

They're the weirdest assemble of people in the whole place and they don't even care.

It's the most fun she has had in so long.

***

Charlotte's band ("It has a name, you know." Henry says everytime.

"Why not Will's band?" The boy himself says, usually followed by

"Because I don't like your ugly face, that's why.") has a lot of small shows and gigs all over town the following months.

By december, when it's too cold to go out without boots and pants on, they all have been to almost every bar in the city, picked more fights than they can count and woke up in progressively weirder places.

 

It's not a surprise then, when Jessamine wakes up in a big, comfortable bed in an even bigger room. Not even Tessa wrapped all around her is a surprise anymore.

What is a surprise, though, is how familiar the room is.

Jessamine recognizes it instantly, by the pattern of the curtains. Curtains she chose.

"Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, fuck." Jessamine tries to get out of bed, just to have Tessa thigthen her grip and mumble unhappily.

Jessamine is barely thinking when she starts shaking Tessa. "Wake up, wake up. We need to go."

Tessa tries to keep sleeping, but Jessamine is too panicked and her franctic voice is enough to wake her friend up.

By the time Tessa is sat up on the bed, Jessamine is already dressed and looking for her shoes. The neon pink boots are easy to find in the room decorated in shades of white and silver. Shortly after, clothes start flying at Tessa's face and Jessamine is back at hurrying her. "Come on! We need to leave."

"Why?" Tessa gets dressed quickly and isn't about to deny Jessamine, but she's curious.

"Because." Is all the answer she gets and the next second Jessamine is out of the room.

The sound of something being dropped followed by Jessamine cursing loudly carries through the door. Tessa reaches the living room in time to hear the man sat at the dining table, eating breakfast dressed in a suit say "Good morning, Jessie.".

Jessamine doesn't remember how she got there, but she certainly regrets it. In her hurry to get out of the house, she forgets all about Tessa.

 

The hangover is nothing compared to seeing Nate again after so long.

She finds herself on Charlotte's couch hours later. Eyes puffed and tear tracks dry on her face.

***

Seeing Nathaniel wasn't even what hurt the most. It was how good he was without her.

How good he was with what belonged to her. If only she hadn't been so stupid and naive. But she was.

She is.

And she makes sure of forgetting about all of it.

***

The best thing about Will is that, as much of an asshole as he is, he actually knows a lot of people, which basically means he knows about all the best parties.

The second best thing about him is that, for as many questions he asks, he never asks the ones she doesn't really want to answer. So, when she texts him thursday night asking for a party he doesn't ask about the things she wants to forget, all he says is

_get on ur_ fuck me _heels bitch_

So she does and they party all night long in some apartment as shitty as theirs, taking shot after shot while Jem watches over them both like some guardian angel.

They go again friday. Then saturday. Then sunday. Until everything is just one big blur with a few moments of lucidity when they have to go to work or Jem makes them stop for a while.

And then they go again.

Jessamine hates William, she does. But he's the closest thing to a brother she'll ever get and she's okay with it.

***

She sees Tessa again weeks later and it's only when Jessamine sees the dark, heavy curls whipping from side to side in time with heavy guitar, that she realizes how much she misses Tessa.

Not that she'll ever admit it.

Jessamine tries to throw an arm around Tessa's shoulder to bring her closer, but ends up stumbling and nearly knocking them both over. Tessa laughs, loud and carefree and wraps her arms around Jessamine's waist.

They dance to heavy metal like it's a slow love song.

And maybe, it almost is.

***

Charlotte's band ("For fuck's sake, Jessamine."

"I think it's cute."

"Why not Gabriel's band?") goes on tour in the end of February.

It's just a few weeks, but of course Jem just has to go with Will, which basically means Jessamine has no one to go out with.

She tries going out alone the first weekend.

It's half past three when she finds herself alone, bent over a toilet with nothing but alcohol in her stomach, it's a wonder Jessamine hasn’t passed out yet. She's not sure when that happened, but there's a number on her phone under the name of 'Tess' and a kissy face emoji and Jessamine doesn't even hesitate before calling.

It's the first time she calls Tessa.

Not the last, though.

***

They've never talked about the day they woke up in Nate's house and Jessamine is kind of glad for it. But by then she knows Tessa enough to know it's coming. She's too curious not to ask about it.

It happens halfway through the third week of Charlotte's band tour.

They've been spending a lot of time together and Tessa has slept over more times than not. It's one of their quiet nights, just passing a joint back and forth and watching dumb movies. Jessamine is so focused on the TV screen she almost misses the question. "Did you know him?"

She thinks about playing dumb. _I don't know what you mean. Him? Who are you talking about? Oh my God, you're so high._

But Tessa knows her, too. As much as that makes Jessamine uncomfortable, it's kinda true.

"Yeah." She doesn't take her eyes from the screen. Wills herself not to cry like she does everytime.

"How?" Her tone is curious and Jessamine can almost feel Tessa's eyes fixed on her.

She grips the hem of her skirt when she says. "We were married."

She waits for a scream, for a _What the fuck_ , for another question but what she gets is a quiet "I'm so sorry."

To say she's confused wouldn't be enough.

"I know him, too." Tessa says. "I know how he can be."

For a moment, Jessamine is afraid of how and why Tessa knows Nate, of what he may have done to her too.

"He's my brother." The words are as quiet as Jessamine ever heard Tessa.

And _damn_.

If Nathaniel had made that much damage to her in less than two years, she could only imagine what growing up with him was like.

***

Gideon and Will are arguing loudly about something Jessamine has no interest whatsoever in, but it's annoying her because the two idiots are standing in front of her, towering over the bean bag she's sharing with Tessa and their loud baby cries are interrupting their talk.

Rolling her eyes, she retracts her leg (Tessa starts laughing even before it happens) and kicks, with as much strength as she can, Gideon's shin. He yelps and tumbles forward, taking Will with him.

Unfortunately, it has the contrary effect, because Dumb and Dumber just start arguing louder and cursing at Jessamine. It's Tessa who solves their problem, taking Jessamine by the hand and leading her to Will and Jem's room.

They can hear Will shouting at them to _not infect my bed with women things_ , but they're too busy laughing at each other to care about him.

"So, what was I saying?" Jessamine asks while she jumps on the bed and then curses at the hard as rock mattress.

Tessa laughs, louder this time, and lays down on her side to face Jessamine. "You were about to tell me how you married my asshole brother."

There's a smile on her face, even if a slight one, while she talks about her brother and Jessamine is struck with the thought that Tessa knows her so much, she even knows how to make the most hurtful experiences bearable.

For the first time in quite a while she decides _what the hell, you can't blame everything on being high_.

"I'd rather be kissing you, though."

"I'd rather have you kissing me, too, actually."

***

Jessamine was seventeen and the heir to more money than she knew what to do with when she met Nathaniel.

She had been too naive then. Had been too struck with the idea of love and having such an amazing man in love with her.

She was eighteen and three days when she got married.

At nineteen, she had a collection of bruises, enough money to last a few months and nowhere to go.

On her twenty birthday party, Jessamine had been too lost on herself to pay attention to anyone else.

By the time she turns twenty one, Jessamine Lovelace can even admit she has a girlfriend and her makeup is actually kinda cute.

(You know, in that I have no fucking idea what i'm doing way.)

***

They look ridiculous, all of them.

They're all wearing old, battered and at least a size too small or too big suits.

And God, Henry's suit is patterned. _The fucking groom is wearing a brown patterned suit._

The girls at least are better, slightly. Sophie looks actually really cute in her baby blue dress but Cecily seems to have forgotten the lower part of her sparkly purple dress at home.

Jessamine would like to think she looks as impecable as she can in a twenty bucks dress. She'd also like to think she did a good job of Tessa's dark makeup. And, even with her reluctance about wearing a dress, at least Jessamine could convince her of putting on a highwaisted skirt and croptop.

Not that any of them matter, because when Charlotte walks in wearing her tight corset over her long dress, she looks as much a bride as she does a fierce warrior.

 

The wedding party is just like any other of their parties. With slightly better booze.

Someone found some pink balloons left from Jessamine's birthday in a drawer at Henry's when all of them helped move his stuff, and now Charlotte's living room is filled with pink balloons.

Shadowhunters' ("Fucking finally!"

"I still want to know why not Will's band."

"I miss 'Charlotte's band'.") first album is playing at maximum volume and if she was anyone else, Jessamine would point out how pretentious that is. As it stands, she has no moral back up to talk about pretentious.

 

After Will dancing on the dining table everything kind of blurs away.

The newly weds pass out inside Charlotte' bathtub - now Charlotte and Henry's, actually.

Cecily takes the whole couch, the little bitch and the rest ends up scattering around five am.

 

They're halfway through July and it's too hot inside the small house, though, so Jessamine and Tessa end up walking home, stumbling against each other in the first light of morning and it's just when they fall on their bed, shoes still on that Jessamine notices it.

Home. _Their_ bed.

She looks around the room, barely making out anything because of the buzz on her head.

Denin jackets and pink sweaters and band shirts and tight skirts and combat boots - black and pink  - and converses and high heels.

Jessamine's eyes fall on the doll house on the desk filled with earrings and makeup and hair clips, then she turns and looks at Tessa.

Half her face is hidden under messy curls, but she smiles idiotically at Jessamine and stretches over to kiss her.

She tastes of smoke and soda and vodka. Tessa's skin under Jessamine's hands is warm and soft.

 

The room is too cramped, too warm even after they discard their clothes.

In her haze of sweat and trying to keep her moans to herself, Jessamine's eyes fall on the doll house again.

Her fingers close on a handful of brown hair and she thinks _fuck a doll house, we can do with this shit apartment_.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed reading this, I surely enjoyed writing it. Let me know what you thought, yep?!  
> And if you ever want to talk about Tessa and Jessie being the cutest girlfriends ever, you can find me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/becketbros)


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